Ed Zschau

Edwin Van Wyck Zschau (pron-en|'ɛdwɪn væn wɪk ʃaʊ; born January 6, 1940) represented California's 12th District in the United States House of Representatives from 1983-1987. In 1986 he ran as the Republican candidate for a seat in the United States Senate. He defeated conservative Bruce Herschensohn in the primary but then lost to incumbent Democrat Alan Cranston by 104,000 votes. It was by far the closest challenge Cranston had in his 4 Senate elections.

Zschau briefly re-entered the political arena as the vice presidential running mate to former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm, a Democrat, who waged a quixotic challenge to Ross Perot for the Reform Party presidential nomination in 1996.

Biography

Zschau was born in Omaha, Nebraska. Zschau is currently a Visiting Lecturer with rank of Professor at Princeton University in the Departments of Electrical Engineering, Operations Research and Financial Engineering, and in the Center for Innovation in Engineering Education. Prior to his current post at Princeton, from 1997-2000, he was Professor of Management at the Harvard Business School and a Visiting Professor at Princeton University. Zschau's business experience is extensive. He founded and served from 1968-1981 as CEO of System Industries, a computer products company.

In 1987, after his narrow defeat for California's United States Senate seat, Zschau became a general partner of Brentwood Associates, a Los Angeles-based venture capital firm, and in 1988, he was elected Chairman and CEO of Censtor Corp., a company which had been founded by Brentwood to develop advanced magnetic recording components for disk drives. He was recruited from Censtor in April 1993 by Lou Gerstner to serve as General Manager of the IBM Storage Systems Division until July 1995.

During the 1960's, Zachau was for five years an Assistant Professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, teaching courses in computer systems, management science, and business policy. In 1967-68 he was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Harvard Business School where he taught the required first year MBA course in managerial economics. He has an A.B. degree (cum laude) in philosophy from Princeton University and M.B.A., M.S. (statistics), and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University.

Ed is also the Founding Chairman, Emeritus, and a member of the National Advisory Board of The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, is on the Board of Scholars of the ACCF Center for Policy Research in Washington, D.C., and is a Fellow of the California Council on Science and Technology. He serves as Chairman of the Board of NanoOpto Corporation, Princeton Power Systems, and StarTek, Inc. (NYSE), President of Polyera Corporation, as a director of The Reader's Digest Association, Inc. (NYSE), and Washington Live, Inc. Ed is also an investor and advisor for several other privately held technology companies.

Ed and his wife, Jo, currently reside in Nantucket, Massachusetts, and Los Altos, California. They have one son, two daughters, and eight grandchildren.